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Month: February 2016

It’s always the way. You take your eye off the counties above Watford Gap for as much as two minutes and you’ll find yourself with a rebellion on your hands. Yes you do. As soon as someone thinks they can get away with whatever it is that they deep down want to do they’ll start indulging in several different varieties of thoroughly depraved behaviour. Not that we’re judging or anything. Was that coming across as just a smidge judgemental? Oh very dear indeed.

The fury of the Northern Powerhouse is rising and the common folk ought to be really very afraid. When such types band together in their disgruntlement the oncoming onslaught that results is downright disturbing. It rolls inexorably onwards, crushing absolutely everything in its path so should you have the fortune to see it coming, I suggest to leap out of the way sharpish.

At this point you’ve probably started somewhere along the track of wondering precisely what it might be that’s got the collective knickers of the northerners in quite so much of a twist? Has Westminster done something so stereotypically London centric that the camel’s back has finally collapsed into a spasming and shattered mess? Did some bright spark make one too many jokes about deep fried foods or whatever it is they devour up there? Who can tell? Perhaps there was simply a general feeling that no one was paying enough attention and they wanted to do something about it.

Whatever might have occurred in the past it’s clear that now is the moment for serious appeasement. Someone sufficiently senior had better get down on their knees in front of the braying mob and pray for forgiveness. Then all must have cake and other forms of treats so that they’ll never so much as dream of misbehaving again. Until something else rubs them up the wrong way and the ire of the Northern Powerhouse is stirred once again.

If the film industry has taught us anything it’s that absolutely everyone and their best friend enjoys a sequel. They’re always artistically justified and never encounter any problems with their plotting. Take Zoolander 2, a film I don’t plan to see. At the end of the last instalment there were just so very many questions left unanswered, threads that just dangled to a tantalising point that meant an entire full length film was completely necessary for the wellbeing of all involved.

The Brexit is simply the starting point of the greatest reality film series in history. The whole situation definitely wasn’t kicked off with the conception of a catchy portmanteau. There was serious politics afoot at the time don’t you know? The snoopers’ charter was also involved, allowing the government to take a peek at all those Facebook statuses you thought they couldn’t access and the very important emails about the minutiae of the inner working of your life.

Once we’ve broken with the rest of Europe those among the government who didn’t want us to go will suddenly become uneasy. Even if the right wing nutters manage to oust Cameron (I’m as surprised as anyone else to admit that he’s probably the best of an increasingly bad bunch. Once President Trump and Prime Minister Johnson are installed, the earth is very definitely doomed) there will be others who saw the light and thought it was best we remain in with the rest of the continent.

The trust will be completely gone. The only way they’ll have to predict how we might vote (because we’ve already proven that polls in the run up to important democratic moments are utterly worthless) will be to keep a tab on what we’re saying online. Hence the snoopers’ charter and the second step on the road that will take us into the 1984 reality we truly deserve.

You know how it is when you really miss the job you used to have. Some become almost entirely unable to let the past go. They hang around haunting their previous digs and micromanage whoever they got in to replace them. Whatever they’ve moved onto simply isn’t enough to hold them and they simply can’t resist the lure of going back. Just to check how things are going mind, not to interfere or anything like that.

This just so happens to be precisely what occurred in the case of Blair. Oh, he went off galavanting around Europe and dabbled with bringing lasting peace to the Middle East. Now I think of it, I really can’t quite remember how all of that resolved. I’m sure it will have been in the papers somewhere at some point. He made enough money to feed a small nation by going on the after dinner circuit but even that really wasn’t sufficient to hold him.

So he went crawling back to the folk in charge (which by that point happened to be the Tories with the Lib Dems acting as puppet like not quite front men). He wanted his old position and prestige back (he did realise the impossibilities regarding this but had to try nonetheless) and asked very nicely indeed. And, taking pity on him, a compromise did eventually manage to be reached.

It changed him. He had to give up what was in retrospect way too much. Even if it felt basically worth it at the time. The country was slowly flushing itself down the toilet and the only way (or so he was told) it could possibly be fixed was to make massive cuts. And Tony was the obvious person to be made to do it because he was so desperate to be involved. The boys in charge were very grateful indeed for that particular Faustian pact.

You would really think that people would be over the moon to find out that they’re not in fact going to die. Sure, they’ve made their peace with it and kissed their assorted precious bits well and truly goodbye. They might have gone on emotional and expensive holidays in order to see far off places and bid farewell to the world they’re leaving behind. I suppose the fact that such actions are prohibitively expensive might be the root cause of a few of their complaints.

But how can you put a price on these experiences? Going through all of that and then realising that you’ve actually got decades yet left to live? How wonderful. Apart from the fact that you’re completely skint and your loved ones know exactly what you think of them. Such is life. And that.

Somehow, people are taking something of a rather different position on this matter. For some crazy reason, they’re taking it incredibly personally that a whole load of doctors made some very simple mistakes, mixed up a raft of paperwork, took some vaguely illicit pills and came to completely false conclusions. I don’t really know what they’re getting so upset about.

It makes the whole healthcare process that little bit more exciting. Wouldn’t it be so much more fun if you couldn’t be entirely sure what was going on? Suddenly, scuttling along to your trusty local GP’s office becomes more of a lucky dip, a lottery and you’ll never be sure again who what you’re going to get. He tells you it’s anaemia you’ll never be entirely certain that it isn’t Ebola or something sporty like the plague. Healthcare professionals and their diagnoses will be relegated to the trustworthiness of journalists or quite possibly some of the slimier estate agents. What a wonderful world.

Everyone (and by everyone I’m pretty sure you’ll find that these people tend to pretty much consist of the incredibly petty and those who never learned to share. Not that I’d ever try to cast aspersions on people simply because they disagree with my viewpoint. I’m totally above all that nonsense) is really worried about all those immigrants hopping the various fences we’ve set up around our glorious island nation and swarming in en masse.

However, the point has been made plenty of times before that migration and all that nonsense really doesn’t pose all that much of a problem. What people really ought to be worried about but almost definitely haven’t realised as of yet is that there is something worrying spreading throughout the police departments of other nations. Something horrifying and paralysing and really rather frightening. I am definitely not stalling at this point because I have no idea what to pretend the problem is.

It could have all started in America. I don’t exactly pay attention to the news or anything but I’m nearly ninety per cent or so certain that there might have been something sort of headline grabbing on a topic vaguely related to race. I’m not sure, firearms of some description may have entered the fray. Then again, guns get drawn into pretty much anything stateside. Not that I’m resorting to cheap stereotypes or anything like that.

But the problems might not have originated there. I’m sure there are plenty of other assumptions made about law enforcers from other nations. Have a long hard think about your favourite and then pretend I said something witty and relevant about it. Then consider for at least twice as long just how droll I am. Ah, excellent. Anyway, the police are being afflicted by a flesh eating virus that’s somehow become sentient and going after those charged with keeping the peace. Be afraid.

I’m not entirely sure I’m all that on board with the latest craze in gourmet cooking. I do very much understand that they have to keep mixing things up (in so very different ways. If I signpost the inadvertent pun sufficiently then it makes it all just fine) but this is essentially the last straw. Things can’t carry on this way.

Sure, it was terribly interesting when they started mucking around with liquid nitrogen. We were all rather less impressed when the portion sizes were reduced to almost nothingness and all sauces tended towards completely pointless foams. I mean, really, who was the genius who dreamt up that unfortunate mess (speaking as someone who has never been subjected to that particular culinary development and hopes to remain as such until the very end of her days)?

This invention is taking full and hearty advantage of the recent recall of an veritable avalanche of confectionary. Sure, they were worried about chunks of poison or plastic or whatever it was (all I ever pay attention to is the headlines, I would have thought this would be incredibly clear by now. Any relevance my fakery has to absolutely anything in the real world is completely coincidental. Or it’s a cunning and devious master plan. Whichever one makes me seem cooler). However, such safety concerns mean nothing whatsoever to the wizards of everything edible.

This is all a fancy way of saying that chefs have run out of anything else to do and have started sticking Mars bars into prime cuts of meat. And the worst thing is that it actually works. It’s proved absolutely delicious and now there’s no going back. Get ready for plenty more chocolate bar and proper dinner mash ups. With mashed potatoes on the side. Prepare for waistlines to expand significantly.

Well this has come as something of a surprise and no mistake. David Cameron is after all hardly renowned for being in touch with the common people. You would think such a man would spend a hell of a lot less time on social media. How can he really defend himself? The Prime Minister is a surprise sucker for the latest meme. He’s even previously toyed with the idea of setting up his own entirely spurious profile so that he could post away to his heart’s content. However, even he could see how badly things might pan out were he caught getting up to such mischief.

Even so, he’s at long last realised that events simply aren’t sustainable. He has to kick this habit before it escalates into something debilitating. At first it was nothing more than an occasional idle moment on Facebook. But then he discovered Tumblr. And Reddit. Then things took one hell of a time consuming turn when he stumbled upon the procrastinatory goldmine that is Imgur.

But when you’re supposed to be running the country a lot of time spent on websites such as these kind of sort of messes with your productivity. In a fairly major way. So he’s going to go public against the decision of several senior advisors. Cameron is less fussed about what such a revelation might do to his reputation than he is about ridding himself of this habit once and for all.

He’s going on an internet free cleanse, a course of meditation and would start thinking very seriously about growing a beard if a hipster leader of the nation wasn’t a terrifying and overall incredibly depressing thought. Once he’s through the other side of cold turkey, David will be able to get his life back and not worry about the latest developments in the world of that Dungeons and Dragons meme. It was getting exhausting trying to dream up new angles on that particular runaway freight train of internet.